Raunchero Road Trip - Arizona Death Trip

Sinking into the threadbare bench
seat as we rumbled onto the floor of
the Grand Canyon, toes numb from
the cold, eyes burning from sleep
deprivation, and haggard looks on
our faces after dodging thousands of miles
of roadkill, we didn't feel like failures. True,
this was not Plan A or even Plan B, but we
were more than OK with finishing Plan C.
The dead end of a dirt trail cut by Native
Americans through the sheer rock walls of
one of the most interesting American geological
anomalies was chosen as a last-ditch
endpoint of a road trip that nearly killed our
spirits, emptied our wallets, and destroyed
our sanity. We were supposed to be ice racing
in Alaska, not bombing through the
desert in Arizona. But GPS coordinates were
irrelevant at this point. We were ecstatic to
see the Colorado River, feel the wind on our
faces, and finally take a break from applying
auto Band-Aids to the '68 Ranchero we
were living in. After six days on the road,
it felt like we'd gone 12 rounds with Tyson
and were still standing defiantly in the ring.
Was this trip a failure? Not by our measure.
Let's start from the beginning, and you can
decide for yourself.

2/21Our ’68 model was originally a 390, non-GT car with a column shifter. We
bought it for $1,300, thinking there was a chance we could just tune it up
and fix a few things, then hit the road. Wishful thinking has led us to many
questionable car purchases.

DECEMBER 1:
FLAWED LOGIC
We've survived many gearhead road trips
on the flimsy footing of "just because." It
turns out the videos of those adventures
have been pretty good, and when our
company struck a deal with YouTube to
become one of the new channel partners
for unique, TV-quality programming, folks
more important than us decided that a
Finnegan and Freiburger show would make
some fine motorhead entertainment. It's
called Roadkill, a 22-minute show that will
air monthly at YouTube.com/MotorTrend.
Yep, it's on the Motor Trend channel. (Reference,
"folks more important than us.") It's
a cool deal. But there was a catch. By the
time all the flimflam was sorted out, we had
two weeks to shoot the first episode and do
something heroic.

3/21Here’s the car we wanted to clone, HRM’s ’68 that ran in
the ’67 NORRA Mexican 1,000, the event that became the
Baja 1000. Back then it was not as hard-core as it is today
and was mostly a rally on dirt roads. The GT, 390, fourspeed
car was virtually stock with big tires, beefy shocks,
and cables to prevent the rear leaf-spring shackles from
flipping forward—a problem we had on today’s car.

Alaska didn't seem that far away from
California when we decided to buy a car,
build it up, and hit the oval-track races on a
frozen lake a couple of hours past Anchorage.
It's 3,400 miles from El Segundo, California,
to Big Lake, Alaska. It takes a normal
person driving a newer car in warm conditions
approximately 72 hours to make the
trip. That's three days of driving nonstop. We
gave ourselves six.

That left us a spare week to buy and build
a car. We had a magazine to produce at the
same time, yet pride and budget constraints
meant we'd have to do the wrenching
ourselves in our spare time and then drive
like hell to make the race. That's not ideal,
practical, or sane--none of which slowed
us down. The alternative was to sit on the
couch and not attempt a once-in-a-lifetime
journey.

4/21The gas pedal broke free of the floorboard during this off-road excursion, one of many repairs made to the 44-year-old RAUNCHero during a road tip through seven states in seven days.

We've always wanted an off-road muscle
car, and this excursion gave us an excuse to
build one we've dreamed of for years: a clone
of the original HOT ROD Spl. '68 Ranchero
GT that Ak Miller and Ray Brock drove to
a class win at the inaugural Mexican 1,000
(now Baja 1,000). By December 3, we owned
a $1,300 '68 Ranchero.

DECEMBER 11: DENIAL
Our victim was a factory 390 car, but we
bought it with a running, mid-'80s 302 and
a half-disconnected power-assist steering
system. One trip out the driveway convinced
us that it wouldn't make it down the block,
let alone the highway. You'll read the full
story next month, but suflce it to say we
ended up fixing or replacing every part
on the car other than the body, the taillight
wiring, and the rear axlehousing and
leaf springs. "We" is the entire HRM staT,
including ourselves and Jerry Pitt, Jesse
Kiser, Brandan Gillogly, Grant Peterson, and
Kimson Ekman, plus outside help from Car
Craf's John McGann, Super Chevy's Calin
Head, HRM reader Blaze O'Brien, pinstriper
JeT Styles, and Tim and Mike McLaughlin of
T&M Performance. As usual, 5.0 Mustang's
KJ Jones just stood and laughed, which he
calls motivation.

5/21The engine we installed is a Dart 363 making 470 hp. There’s a dyno test of it later in this
issue. The rest of the buildup of the car appears next month.

Compounding our dilemma were some
modifications outside of our norm,
all to survive the subzero temps we'd
encounter. We had Stitchcraf Interiors
(StitchcrafInteriors.com) restuT the bench
seat with electric warmers while we patched
every single hole in the ffoor and firewall
and insulated every inch of the cab with
Dynamat products and new carpet. The car
didn't have a working heater, so we installed
a Summit Racing universal people heater
under the dash. The car was further fortified
with a battery heater, an oil pan heater,
a block heater, and a trans-pan heater and
cooler. We installed Continental Tire's
ExtremeWinterContact ice tires and loaded
a spare set of Grabber AT all-terrains with
snow studs. We also ordered snow gear
from Carhartt (Carhartt.com) and went on
a shopping spree at our local REI store to
find whatever giblet-warming gear we didn't
already own. If we became stuck in subzero
temperatures, we'd be ready for it.

6/21We have a simple equation for determining how long a project will take to complete: multiply
the time it takes to do the job when you have all the right parts and tools by two and then add
another day to the total.

The team thrashed almost 20 hours every
day, and we spent about $4,000 at Summit
Racing--and overnighted the order. Once
we realized our FMX trans was junk,
Gearstar Performance (GearStar.net)
built and dyno'd a C4 in one day and then
air-freighted it to us days before our deadline
and at a staggering cost. Freiburger
assembled and had Westech Performance
dyno-tune a Dart-based, 363ci small-block
(that you can read about later in this issue).
Hedman hand-delivered the headers. It
wasn't enough. We were supposed to hit the
road the morning of Sunday, December 11.
By the time that came and went, four of us
had slept just two hours out of 48. We locked
ourselves in the shop and kept at it while
sending our video crew ahead to Utah where
we told them we'd catch up. We flnally hit
the road late on December 12 afier another
all-nighter, 30 hours behind schedule and
with oil leaking out the back of the pan.
At this point, we'd named the car
RAUNCHero, because it made us laugh.
Sleep deprivation will do that.

7/21The final push to get out the shop door required a 48-hour thrash on the part of Freiburger,
Finnegan, Gillogly, and Kiser. We ultimately ignored a small oil leak and missing timing pointer
and hit the road late.

DECEMBER 13:
ACCEPTANCE
The Alaska Death Trip was designed to take
us north through Nevada, Arizona, Utah,
Idaho, Montana, and flnally to Canada
where we'd hook up with the famed
Alaskan-Canadian Highway (ALCAN),
which was built during WWII in 1942 by
the U.S. Army to strategically connect the
two countries. The RAUNCHero ran great
even without tuning or a shakedown run.
With 2.80 gears in our 8-inch rear, the 363
hummed along at 3,000 rpm at 80 mph, and
the Gearstar C4 worked like a champ. It got
better than 10 mpg climbing the grades from
Los Angeles to Vegas. The rebuilt suspension
was smooth, the air shocks were leaking but
still carried the weight of our gear, and we
were making decent time.

8/21Our first encounter with snow was a schedule killer that resulted in slower speeds. We had fun
all the way to Idaho until we realized we were too late to go racing.

We never made it to Canada. Our flrst
snowstorm hit at 2 a.m. on Tuesday just
before Salt Lake City. Good-size furries had
already stuck to the highway and built up a
slick base, reducing our speed to 30 mph.
We weren't bummed about it because the
rear-wheel-drive RAUNCHero worked surprisingly
well in the snow, and we could see,
thanks to the IPF driving lights we mounted
up front. We actually passed a few fourwheel-
drives on the fat sections.

By the time we reached Utah, though, the
decision had already been made to push the
video crew ahead to Edmonton, Alberta,
Canada, because we were even further
behind schedule, and oh by the way, our
freshly installed block heater was leaking
coolant from a water jacket. We'd already
driven 12 hours straight and needed another
12 to have any hope of making it to the ice
races. flings were not looking good. It got
worse when we stopped at a gas station in
Arimo, Idaho, to add oil to the engine and
fix the block heater. With the outside temp
nose-diving to 1 degree F, we yanked the
block heater out, hucked it across the parking
lot, and replaced it with a rubber expansion
plug. When we went to leave, the frozen
passenger side window exploded when we
slammed the door shut.

9/21The frozen window came off the track, and when Finnegan slammed the door, it hit the
driprail and exploded into 1,000 tiny pieces.

We finally had to face reality. It was 2,840
miles to Big Lake. We'd have to cover 800
miles every day to make it on time, which
meant any blizzards or breakage would
end it all, and we were already asleep at the
switch. Dejected, we drowned our sorrows
in hot chocolate, enjoying the warmth of a
convenience store lunch area and staring at
our broken Ford in the parking lot. flat's
when Freiburger hatched Plan B, which in
hindsight was just as nuts as Plan A: We'd
drive to Colorado and pick up a '55 Chevy
that our company had recently purchased,
sight unseen. What's more, we'd Tat-tow it
home behind the RAUNCHero because that
would make for good entertainment. fle
RAUNCHero had a trailer hitch. flis could
work. We had a new goal--not a reasonable
goal, but a goal nonetheless. So the video
crew hopped a Tight from Canada back to
Utah, and we fixed the window with cardboard
and duct tape and then drove to meet
them in Salt Lake City. Déjà vu.

DECEMBER 14-15:
DENIAL PART II
The 602-mile drive from Salt Lake City to
Colorado Springs, Colorado, wasn't particularly
outstanding until we reached the top
of Vail Summit, 10,600 feet above sea level.
Of course it was snowing, and of course we
were feeling cocky because our carbureted
363 was running quite well. flat's when
disaster struck. On the downslope of the
mountain, we lost the alternator belt, so
not only was the charging system dead, but
the water pump was no longer spinning.
fle cold air Towing from the heater was a
dead giveaway that something was up. We
did what any insane person would do and
coasted down the mountain with engine of
and the lights on, killing the power brakes
and only firing the engine to climb small
hills. When the engine was running, the
Gearstar trans had a neat engine-braking
feature that really helped control the Ford on
hills, without smoking the brakes. We survived
that roller coaster and stayed the night
at a motel in the foothills and replaced the
belt the next morning.

Our caravan of videographers and overtired
magazine editors reached Colorado
Springs late the next affernoon, eager to
see what was supposed to be a new project
car. fle '55 was a pile, a veritable yard sale,
a block of Swiss cheese that needed one of
everything and a tetanus shot to be whole
again. Under normal circumstances we
would have taken a Sawzall to the car à la
Caddy Hack because it was useless as anything
other than a Tyweight drag car unless
a six-digit restoration budget were involved,
which wasn't the case. fle radiused wheelwells,
gray primer, and overall stance were
great, but we were sick to our stomachs over
the missing Toorboard, trunk, transmission,
and hacked small-block installation. But, if
we didn't tow it home then we didn't have a
video, and if we didn't have a video then this
trip was, again, a waste.

Our lives were saved by Colorado Speed
Co. (ColoradoSpeedCompany.com), where
the guys graciously opened their doors and
toolbox to us so we could prep the car for
the trip home. Together we fixed the obvious
stuf like the mismatched lug nuts and
missing cotter pins from the front hubs, and
welded a tow bar to the front framehorns.

DECEMBER 16:
DEPRESSION
It only took a quarter-mile or so to realize
we were in deep trouble. We expected to
tow slowly on the way home, but we didn't
expect the gutted Chevy to drive the heavier
Ford. The train of old iron lumbered down
the highway, swaying left and right faster
than we could correct the wheel. It was ugly.
It was slow. It was dangerous. That's when
the text came from our video crew: "We had
an accident." Damn. They got sideswiped by
a Mack truck. We took it as a sign, and used
the delay as an opportunity to drag the '55
back to the seller, who gave us our money
back. Cool. But we were again without a
mission.
We caught up with the video crew at a
repair facility, assuming they were ready to
hop a Tight home and leave us for dead. The
trip was a Top, and their SUV--borrowed
from Four Wheeler magazine--had two broken
wheels, blown tires, and $10,000 worth
of bashed sheetmetal to show for our eforts.
Remarkably, they were in good spirits. We
regrouped and took a lunch break to figure
out our next move.

DECEMBER 17-18:
REDEMPTION
We'd driven 1,500 miles and badly needed a
win. Sure, we'd rolled a 44-year-old muscle
car across the western half of the country in
the snow afler totally rebuilding it in a week,
which by itself is pretty cool, but without
a target to hit it felt more like a comedy of
errors than an epic winter road trip. That's
when we got the bright idea to trek to the
Grand Canyon. It was 700-plus miles in the
general direction of home and with two days
lefl on our schedule we could check out the
canyon from the new Grand Canyon Skywalk.
The Skywalk is a 70-foot-long, 65-footwide,
transparent structure that jets out from
the side of the canyon, 500 feet above the
Toor. The view is breathtaking. Going there
would be an ending worthy of the journey
thus far. Our iPhone gave us directions to
Peach Springs, Arizona, the Hualapai Indian
tribal grounds, so we headed there, stopping
to rest in Flagstaf, Arizona, at 2 a.m.
Flagstaf ofered more snow, but the
highway was clear, so we made good time
> The donkey on the roof didn't spook
the donkey in the bushes (arrow) nearly
as much as the exhaust note of the
Flowmaster mufflers.

heading to Peach Springs the next day. We
stopped at the Roadkill Café in Seligman
and ate food named afler dead animals. We
bought a metal donkey, which we named
Donkey and strapped to the roof of the
RAUNCHero for good luck. We played in
the snow and spun donuts just because. It
lightened the mood, and we arrived in Peach
Springs smiling.

Strangely, we saw no signs along Route 66
for the Skywalk. We knew something was
amiss. The local tourism center confirmed our
suspicions: The Internet shafled us. We were
in the wrong spot, some 200 miles away, and
losing daylight fast. However, we did learn of
a trail leading to the Colorado River, which
cut a path right through the Earth at the base
of the Grand Canyon. The trail was a rough,
19-mile stretch of rock and dirt inhabited by
wild boars, coyotes, rattlesnakes, and donkeys.
The woman behind the counter at the visitor
center doubted our resolve to negotiate the
trail in the RAUNCHero, but she took our
money anyway.

After the pitfalls, shortcomings, cruel
twists of fate, and self-inflicted physical and
emotional wounds, we were bound to see
this through to the end. We were meant to
meander until finding the real goal of this
trip: to see the bottom of the Grand Canyon
in person and to get there by our own
mechanical means. We tore of into the desert,
driving with purpose and throwing caution
to the wind. We sped alongside wildlife,
crossed streams, busted boulders and had
the time of our lives. Raunchy would not
let us down. We reached the shore at dusk,
knowing the gate to the trail would soon
close. We spent maybe half an hour staring
at the river, high-fiving each other and basking
in the glow of our accomplishment. It
wasn't Alaska and we weren't racing, but that
wasn't the point and we knew it. We had our
video, and the 400-mile drive home would
be a cakewalk.

Some have said that we aren't hot rodders,
that we are irresponsible and generate
predictable failure whenever we hatch a
harebrained scheme and embark on one of
these trips. It's tough to argue. However, we
are having fun, and isn't that the point? Ours
may not be their brand of whiskey, but it
tastes good to us, and we'll drink it heartily
and not hesitate to laugh during those rare
occasions when opportunity meets chance,
no matter what the outcome. We just logged
3,000-plus miles in a '68 Ranchero in the
dead of winter. Beats riding the couch.